Knife-attack on Austrian train was not terrorism (no, really)

Austrian police detain the man who had slashed two passengers (photo via NYPost)

There was another knife-attack on a European train on Tuesday. In so many of these cases authorities bend themselves in knots trying to obfuscate possible Islamist motives. The perpetrators are said to suffer from “mental illness”. I am willing to take this one at face value because of certain details released by police.

The assault came three days after a man attacked passengers on a crowded Swiss train with a knife and burning liquid Saturday, in an assault that left him and one of his victims dead. But police in Austria ruled out a copycat attack Tuesday or one prompted by religious or political motives.

“Decisive for the act was that he felt threatened by the cellphones of the passengers sitting across from him, at which point he attacked them,” said the statement.

It said the man whom German police described as someone with “psychological problems … voiced anti-Fascist utterances,” as police struggled to detain him.

The Austrian police statement said the 19-year old was the first victim in Tuesday’s incident, with the perpetrator lunging at him from a facing seat. He then attacked the 17-year old as the train slowed to a halt at Sulz, about 6 miles east of the Swiss border.

The attacker was apprehended at the stop by two police officers who used pepper spray to subdue him, police said. A 22-year old passenger who helped police suffered minor cut wounds to a hand.

The acting threatened by cell phones and anti-fascist rantings make this seem legit. Unfortunately, the “mental illness” mantra is being repeated so often that the public should have little trust in their public-servants.

After an exhaustive list of dubious “mental illness” statements by officials following attacks by possible Islamists, Frontpage magazine writes:

Are you starting to see a pattern?

What could account for this global outbreak of mental illness, that always manifests itself in similar ways? Authorities should start asking themselves why so many mentally ill people embrace Islamic jihad violence. This sort of thing happens so often that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders should consider adding “Islamic jihad” as a mental illness to its next edition.

That might well be the case, but history’s most famous expert on mental illness once said: